Effectiveness of Workplace Safety Time-out at Construction Sites

Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye asked the Minister for Manpower with regard to the spike in workplace fatalities in the construction section in the second half of 2024 (a) how many active construction sites participated in the Safety Time-out called by the Ministry in November 2024; (b) whether the Ministry has analysed if there were any specific reasons behind the sharp rise in workplace fatalities; and (c) how does the Ministry intend to address this concerning trend.

Ms He Ting Ru asked the Minister for Manpower (a) of the 15 construction workplace deaths in the second half of 2024, how many have involved companies that have been allowed to resume work after only completing general safety reviews following earlier serious incidents; (b) whether the Ministry will automatically require external safety audits and specific structural changes to be implemented before work can resume at sites with fatalities given this stricter approach have successfully reduced deaths during the 2022 heightened safety period; and (c) if not, why not.

Mr Speaker, of the 14 construction worksites where the fatalities occurred in the second half of 2024, nine were issued with stop-work orders because their safety management systems were found to be inadequate, posing imminent danger to their workers. These worksites were required to undertake measures, such as reviewing their safety management systems, before they can resume work. None of the 14 incident worksites had previously been issued with stop-work orders.

I share the Members' concern about the increase in workplace fatalities, especially in the construction sector. While the sector’s Workplace Safety and Health (WSH) performance is better than those of many developed countries like Japan, we are not yet on par with top performers such as the Netherlands. There is certainly scope for our construction sector to do better.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has continued to tighten our enforcement efforts for the construction sector. In 2024, more than 3,000 inspections were conducted, targeting key concerns such as Working at Height, Vehicular Safety and Struck by Falling Objects. More recently, we instituted a Safety Time-out in November 2024 to refresh workers’ awareness of WSH practices and reinforce the importance of adhering to safety protocols.

To improve industry-level WSH outcomes, the Multi-Agency Workplace Safety and Health Taskforce (MAST), which includes partners such as the Ministry of National Development (MND), Building and Construction Authority (BCA), and the WSH Council Industry Committees, has also introduced several measures to enhance WSH standards in the construction sector. These include: (a) subjecting all public construction projects to the Safety Disqualification Framework, which temporarily bars contractors with poor WSH performance from tendering; and (b) requiring all construction worksites with contract values of $5 million and above to install video surveillance systems. The requirement for external safety audits to be conducted following serious lapses remains in effect after the Heightened Safety Period. To strengthen accountability at the leadership level, we have also instituted measures such as requiring Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and board directors in the higher-risk sectors, including construction, to attend the Top Executive WSH Programme.

Overall, our fatality rate has fallen over the years, averaging 1.1 per 100,000 workers, and is among the top performers worldwide. However, construction fatalities remain over-represented in Singapore with almost half our fatalities coming from the sector. So, the companies and the workers in the sector can certainly do better. On our part, we will monitor the progress of the measures implemented this year to further improve safety and accountability.

I urge all employers and workers to remain alert as we approach the Chinese New Year period, which is typically a time when companies face time pressures to complete projects. MOM will continue with enhanced enforcement efforts during this period. We must not compromise on safety. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that every worker returns home safely.

I thank the Senior Minister of State for the reply. While I appreciate the Senior Minister of State's reply on the multi-agency approach for the Safety Time-out, my question is more on the effectiveness, or at least, increasing the effectiveness of the Safety Time-out. In the MOM website, during a Safety Time-out, companies are strongly urged to review their risk assessment and debrief their workforce.

Can I suggest that during the Safety Time-out, companies are required to review their risk assessment, their safety management system and required to acknowledge that they have done so, especially at the leadership level, whether it is from the directors, and within the companies, flow it down, with their workers acknowledging that they have been debriefed and they are sure of the safe practices that are required?

I thank the Member for his question. Indeed, the Safety Time-out that was done was voluntary because this was meant to complement MOM's enforcement efforts overall. In terms of effectiveness, a Safety Time-out on its own is not going to be the panacea to solve the fatality issues. Having said that, we have also done more extensive measures, all introduced just last year, for example, requiring companies with projects above $5 million to put video surveillance systems. That has put a lot of companies on notice because they know that if something happens, there is record, there is video surveillance that is there as evidence for MOM to investigate. That has deterred many companies in terms of making sure that all processes and protocols are in place.

The other things which I mentioned earlier on include, we have now required CEOs and board directors in industries – not just construction but others as well – to refresh themselves to be very familiar. So, the accountability is not just at the worker level, but at CEO and board level, so that they cannot say, "I didn't know. My safety officer was already hired to do this." Accountability starts from the top.

Within the construction sector, one of the key changes we also made in terms of the disqualification criteria was, for example, in the past, we only made the contractor and the two levels of sub-contractors accountable. Since last year, we have also now made it so for the contractor and all levels of sub-contractors accountable as well. So, there is none of this old business of telling us, "This was some sub-contractor down the line, I have no sight, no visibility". You have to be accountable for all your sub-contractors down the line.

We have made some measures, apart from just the Safety Time-out, that we think should enhance the safety protocols and procedures in the construction sector. We worked very closely with MND and BCA on this. I think one aspect would also be how we transform the sector, which MND and BCA are playing a very important role in this too, in terms of making our construction processes more productive, more safe. Today, you can see many of them performing quite well. Some of them have gone beyond just video surveillance and to include video analytics into the surveillance systems which are able to proactively predict or pre-empt some of these unsafe things in workers' conduct.

Overall, I think we have to not just rely on Safety Time-outs, but on the whole suite of measures that we introduced last year. And give us time, because it has been about six months or so for some of these measures and they need time to permeate and for us to evaluate their effectiveness. I assure Members that we are doing all we can, but the industry will also need to respond, and so, give them time to do so.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State for the reply. I agree with the Senior Minister of State that we must step up our efforts to improve safety in the construction sector. I would like to ask the Senior Minister of State if MOM has analysed the profile of the construction companies that caused the unfortunate increase in the workplace fatalities in the second half of 2024. Were these primarily by large construction projects or by small- and medium-sized projects?

I recall that there was a period of time when there were many sub-contractors working within the same worksite. And if there is a clear trend, we should double down on our efforts to engage the specific sub-sector so as to better address the rise in the construction-related work fatalities.

I thank the Member for his question. I do not have the statistics off-hand in terms of the mix between large and small firms. I can tell the Member that based on our analysis in previous years for this particular group, there is a mix in terms of large and small firms. Small firms do form a significant portion of that number, which I think is about close to half or one third. If you think about it, many of these could have been avoided because many of them are in the addition and alteration (A&A) type of projects and renovation works, and some are doing maintenance works in facilities management. These are the areas in which we are working with BCA to see how we can encourage and better educate to create better awareness and procedures and protocols among our small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

So, yes, there are the larger firms but if you think about risk profile, larger worksites, bigger workforce, but the numbers are over-represented if you think about ratios in the SME sector. And that is one area in which we are working closely with BCA to try to manage.

Thank you, Speaker. Two supplementary questions for the Senior Minister of State. The first supplementary question is in relation to the point that he mentioned. I am not sure whether I heard correctly about there being a temporary bar from public sector projects should there be certain violations. In the context of workplace fatalities, for example, we all agree that it is one too many. So, would workplace deaths, for example, automatically trigger such a certain period of disqualification and how would these be assessed?

The second supplementary question is in relation to the SnapSAFE reports. I note in a news article that there was an increase in the number of such workplace safety violation reports. In terms of the level of resources that MOM has, is it adequately staffed, to ensure that these are properly investigated and, not just the investigation, but also the subsequent follow-up to make sure that the rectifications are done to prevent any incidents?

To the Member's first question on the demerit points system, we have enhanced it in the last year or the last couple of years, if I recall correctly. We brought down the debarment categories, in the sense that, now, it covers all Government Procurement Officers who procure construction work.

The debarment points system debars a firm for at least three months at 25 points and that gets triggered when you have one fatality. So, to some extent, if a company incurs more points, almost like the traffic demerit points system, whether it is MOM inspections, finding stop-work orders or other contraventions, even minor injuries, major injuries, that adds up the demerit points.

So, just to assure the Member that, yes, a fatality will trigger certain responses and it depends on demerit points over an 18-month period, for example, just like the traffic violation systems, it will debar them from public sector contracts.

I would say that we think this would be effective because the public sector does take on more than half of the construction projects in Singapore and therefore, I think that is a big, sizeable account for many of our construction firms, especially larger ones. As I said, one of the key things we got to look out for are the SMEs, because they may not rely on public sector works and typically, they are over-represented when we think about some of the A&A renovation projects or even facility management projects that result in fatalities or major injuries. So, I think that is one area in which the disqualification credit may not have happened and that is probably one reason why you find that many of our larger firms tend to do better too.